Anarchy and Anarchists / A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators

by Michael J. Schaack

CHAPTER XXXIV.

In the Supreme Court—A Supersedeas Secured—Justice Magruder Delivers the Opinion—A Comprehensive Statement of the Case—How Degan was Murdered—Who Killed Him?—The Law of Accessory—The Meaning of the Statute—Were the Defendants Accessories?—The Questions at Issue—The Characteristics of the Bomb—Fastening the Guilt on Lingg—The Purposes of the Conspiracy—How they were Proved—A Damning Array of Evidence—Examining the Instructions—No Error Found in the Trial Court’s Work—The Objection to the Jury—The Juror Sandford—Judge Gary Sustained—Mr. Justice Mulkey’s Remarks—The Law Vindicated.

ALTHOUGH doomed to die, the prisoners did not despair. Their counsel led them to believe that the State Supreme Court would certainly grant them a rehearing, and the first step to get their case before that court was to secure a stay of the execution of the sentence. For this purpose Hon. Leonard Swett was called into the case to assist Capt. Black, and the two gentlemen accordingly went before Chief Justice Scott, and on the 25th of November, 1886, secured the desired supersedeas. In March, 1887, the appeal came before the Supreme Court of Illinois, and arguments were heard in the case until the 18th of the same month, when the matter was taken under advisement. Several months elapsed before a decision was handed down, but meanwhile all the prisoners expressed the utmost confidence in a reversal of the judgment of the Criminal Court. Their counsel were alike confident of a rehearing, and sympathizers joined in the hopes indulged in by the men behind the bars and their representatives before the bar.

On Wednesday, September 14, 1887, however, the Supreme Court rendered its decision, sustaining the findings of the lower court in every particular. It was given by the full bench, and there was not a dissenting opinion. Justice Benjamin D. Magruder delivered the opinion. After stating various rulings bearing on murder, conspiracy, accessory before the fact and other legal points involved in the case, and citing numerous extracts from the organs of the Anarchists and Herr Most’s book, he reviewed the authorities given by the counsel to sustain their respective sides, and then delivered the opinion of the court, as follows:

“This case comes before us by writ of error to the Criminal Court of Cook County. The writ has been made a supersedeas.

“Plaintiffs in error were tried in the summer of 1886 for the murder of Mathias J. Degan, on May 4, 1886, in the city of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. On August 20, 1886, the jury returned a verdict finding the defendants August Spies, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, Albert R. Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel and Louis Lingg guilty of murder, and fixing death as the penalty. By the same verdict they also found Oscar W. Neebe guilty of murder and fixed the penalty at imprisonment in the penitentiary for fifteen years.

JUDGE BENJAMIN D. MAGRUDER.
From a Photograph.

“About the 1st day of May, 1886, the workingmen of Chicago and of other industrial centers in the United States were greatly excited upon the subject of inducing their employers to reduce the time during which they should be required to labor on each day to eight hours. In the midst of the excitement growing out of this eight-hour movement, as it was called, a meeting was held on the evening of May 4, 1886, at the Haymarket, on Randolph Street, in the West Division of the city of Chicago. This meeting was addressed by the defendants Spies, Parsons and Fielden. While the latter was making the closing speech, and at some point of time between ten and half-past ten o’clock in the evening, several companies of policemen, numbering one hundred and eighty men, marched into the crowd from their station on Desplaines Street, and ordered the meeting to disperse. As soon as the order was given, some one threw among the policemen a dynamite bomb, which struck Degan, one of the police officers, and killed him. As a result of the throwing of the bomb and of the firing of pistol shots, which immediately succeeded the throwing of the bomb, six policemen besides Degan were killed, and sixty more were seriously wounded.”

The court then went into the law of accessory, confirming the interpretation and ruling of the trial court, that all distinction between principals and accessories is by the Illinois statute abolished. The issue thus became: Were the defendants accessories to the murder of Degan?